Ambience
by Luna-Bell07
Summary: Bodie/Rasa. Inspired by through25 on DeviantArt. Bodie can't sleep because he's thinking of a beautiful, ethereal agent that never stops working. Doesn't help that Rasa's past is on his mind, either.


He walked through channels and sounds, songs and secrets, becoming one with a world that excited him.

He was always one for exploring, having crept into an underground cavern when he was just five years old. Fear was shoved out of the way by the possibility of finding starfish, and other creatures that made their home underneath the waves. Bodie found everything he was looking for-and more. And he captured it all with his little camera. A gift from his father, on his third birthday.

Nothing would ever be able to capture, or measure, the disorienting reality of Dance Central Intelligence.

His Mickey Mouse watch read two in the morning. Grabbing a hold of sleep wasn't possible, even with upcoming dance-offs in mind. Sure, Emilia slept like a rock and would have even if Tan's Cypher units took a hold of headquarters. But Bodie was a bit of an insomniac, unable to close his eyes and dream if anything bothered him. He still wasn't able to live down a movie night during the Dance Central 2 season. Angel decided they should all bond over Jaws, and wham bam boom, Bodie couldn't turn the corner without thinking a shark would pop out of the shadows and eat him. So yeah, going to bed that night wasn't exactly easy.

Emilia was devastated. Who wouldn't be, knowing a lifeguard was afraid of a plastic shark?

On that particular hour, though, where existence was trapped between night and day, Bodie couldn't stop worrying about Rasa.

Life happened like the lens of a camera clicking-much too fast to keep up with. It was as if they were moving 200 frames per second. Waging war on Tan and his Cypher units sometimes proved to be as easy as teaching a Chihuahua how to Tango. Sure, Lima's partner looked as if he could stay afloat. Acted that way, too. But the day they were leaving behind turned out to be no mere waltz.

And things were about to get really funky, as Tan put it in one message.

Then, shortly after that, the old man referred to Rasa as his 'old friend'.

Struck a few hard chords for a moment, but then the grimace passed and Rasa went right back to being Rasa.

Which wasn't sitting too well with Bodie.

Bodie, in the same way he crept into the kitchen at midnight a few months ago, sneaking off with Emilia's chocolate chip cookies, crept closer to Rasa's work station. Approaching an exotic creature was far from easy, though. It required finesse. Tact. Some of the things Rasa, Lima and other DCI veterans drilled into the heads of the rookies.

Bodie had just as much finesse as a kid hiding his parent's favorite treasure.

The wall-to-floor aquariums did little to calm Emilia's partner down. Sure, DCI was set up for morning, noon and night, providing great ambiance for whoever happened to be wandering around during low-activity hours. But as much as Bodie adored the fishes that surrounded him, and swam beneath him, he couldn't afford to focus so much on how incredible the simulations were.

_I can't sleep knowing he's upset._

Ah. Just a few yards away. But at the same time, Rasa looked as if he were a million miles away. Sitting in his own corner of the world, tucked away from all things outside, but with eyes all over the globe. His hands were hard at work on the keyboard, soft yet determined to get a few things done. A nymph traveling through space, in which time did not exist. Just what was going on so early in the morning, anyway?

Bodie frowned. He knew he didn't have any credentials to his name, being unable to sleep over a plastic shark, but-

_"Well, well, well. If it isn't my old friend Rasa."_

Okay. Deep breath. Careful approach.

Hold on.

_Crap! What am I supposed to say?! 'Oh, hey Rasa, how's it goin'? What 'cha doin' this time at night?'_

"Hello there, Agent Parker."

Bodie groaned. Epic fail. And he knew what was about to follow.

"Left yourself too much out in the open. Try harder next time. Would've been incinerated by a dozen Cyphers by now."

Ugh. It was like Emilia catching him with her Chips Ahoy all over again! But the voice. Rasa's voice.

Why did it have to be so gentle?

And how could listening to something so gentle, so ethereal, _hurt_ so much?

"Got somethin' you'd like t' talk to me about? Or are you admirin' th' scenery?"

**Both,** Emilia's partner thought instantly, but suppressed the urge to say it. Rubbing the back of his neck, with his cheeks on fire, Bodie stepped forward-and found himself hating how Rasa's eyes never left his work station. Not because he felt his superior was ignoring him, though. It was because there was one very important word missing from his vocabulary.

Rest.

"Oh, um, yeah, it's nothing, really. Just wondering, uh, what you're up to!"

The response was slightly stern, but still unbearably gentle. "Try again, Agent."

"Okay, okay," the lifeguard groaned, slumping over. He took a deep breath, was silent for a moment, then:

"I was wondering if you were all right."

Rasa fell silent, hands and all. Frozen. Suspended where time did not have a place, and nothing made sense, save for the rise and fall of his chest. Bodie didn't dare breathe, as breathing only drew daggers into his lungs, then-

Lima's partner turned around.


End file.
